Wednesday, November 28, 2007

PATCO Smart Card Conversion Could Create Problems for Bike Passengers

As PATCO is rolling out it's new Freedom Card fare collection system it may anger some bicyclists who will have no legal way to exit certain stations.

New fare gates are being installed one station at a time, starting tomorrow (Thursday Nov. 29th) Broadway Station in Camden will be the first to totally convert to the Freedom Card fare system.

Bicycles are only allowed to use ADA compatible fare gates, currently only 9th Locust and 13th and Locust have ADA fare gates. That means that bicyclists boarding at Broadway will be forced to exit illegally through Non-ADA fare gates at all other PATCO stations including Lindenwold and 8th and Market.

It will be interesting to see how PATCO handles this, ADA fare gates will be installed at all stations by February 2008.

4 comments:

Neil said...

Oh yeah, this whole transition could have been better handles. A friend and I were touring and took PATCO from the city to Cherry Hill, and ended up passing a bike over the turnstiles - a bike loaded for touring.

The Historian said...

I agree. I was the fellow who TWICE had to move his loaded touring bike over the turnstile.

Anonymous said...

As of Dec. 14This has been cleared up as far as Broadway and City Hall stations are concerned. The new ADA gates are in service. The North end of 8th and Market has the new paddle type ADA gate in service, so there is an alternate route to cross the Ben Franklin bridge when the walkways are closed. If you enter on the old ticket system from another station, you can still exir using the ADA gate on the South end of 8th and Market.

cynthia1 said...

There were some useful pointers which I will definitely bear in mind for use next time. Thanks for sharing!
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